In Search of the Lost ChordTime TravellerAnthologyHall of FameVery Best of the Moody Blues/Hall of FameA Night at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra [2002]GoldChroniclesCollection [Universal International]In Search of the Lost Chord [Deluxe Edition]CollectedLive at the BBC: 1967-1970In Search of the Lost Chord [US 2008 Bonus Tracks]Live at the Isle of Wight 1970The Moody Blues [Collector's Tin]Moody BluesIcon 2Collected: The Videoclips

General CommentOne of their better ones...aboout drugs. More specifically psychedelic drugs aka LSD. Timothy Leary was actually psychologist, and he campaigned for the legal use of LSD drugs. Thats a lesson for you kids, read, I remembered this from reading a book long ago. Anyways thye are kind of using his name as a metophor for the drug.

General CommentPossibly, this could be the Moodys theme song. People who dont "get" the Moody Blues music dont realize that they were mostly making background music for LSD trips. At least they were in the late 60s to early 70s. I love the whole Search of the Lost Chord album, its got that "lost innocence of the 60s" feel,although the sound quality of the original LP wasnt too good. I havnt seen a remastered version, but I will look out for it.

General CommentI belive this song is the Moody Blues way of saying that Timothy Leary had the right idea.
"He's not dead, he's outside looking in" could mean, he's not a lost cause (dead) he understands the world (outside looking in).
Not Known Fact: Mr. Leary experemented on collage students with LSD in small doses, and nobody had a negative reaction. Further more, some of them had their lives changed for the better!
THINK ABOUT IT!

General CommentYou are all correct. I was a teenager when the Moodies were a hip, psychedelic (even undergound) band. In the late 60s, if you were smoking good hash or dropping acid you listened to some mix of Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd (pre-Dark Side of the Moon) AND THE MOODY BLUES!! The Moodies, and Mike Pinder in particular, were "inner-nauts" who experimented with Eastern religion, meditation and (IMO) LSD. BTW, not that many people know this but the Moodies (Mike Pinder, actually) wrote another song about Tim Leary: "When You're a Free Man" on Seventh Sojourn.

General CommentLeary had the right idea: RESPONSIBLE recreational use of drugs like LSD. A bit much to hope for, especially at that time, but good on him for questioning the motives of people who would ban drugs just for the sake of banning them, as if that ever stopped anyone.

General CommentThe 'astral plane' part of this song fits in well with the references to Timothy Leary and the whole LSD thing. The Astral Plane was actually a plane that you could ride in. A man advertised for it in San Fransisco bay. For $10, he would 'take you up' for a trip around the bay, descibing various places of interest - sort of like a bus tour guide, but in a small plane. He would, then, of course, 'bring you down' and 'plant your feet back firmly on the ground'. (Part of the $10 fee was bringing you back to your point of origin). The Moody Blues mix this story with the Timothy Leary idea beautifully, making Leary the pilot. Brilliant.

Song MeaningI read somewhere, liner notes in a remastered CD I think, that when this song was written they had no idea what LSD was and were very naive about counterculture. This is their interpretation of the events happening in San Francisco- nobody was quite sure of what was really going on.

That is why he used the imagery of a sort of Biplane, and

He'll fly his astral plane.
He'll take you trips around the bay.
He'll bring you back the same day.

Not to say that they didn't learn more quickly, as that was the scene then. But at the time the album was more about the current TM fad and meditation.